“There’s yarrow balm in the yellow jar,” Rosethorn said with a yawn. “We made it up fresh yesterday. Aloe balm in the green one, and—”

“I know how you mark your medicines,” Henna said tartly. “Broth, bed! Now!”

Rosethorn leaned closer, and kept her voice low. “Why is there only one of you?”

Henna rested a hand on Rosethorn’s shoulder. “Because we knew you and Briar here were fine and able to care for this lot, if you had someone else good to help. The others are needed elsewhere. The Duke’s Guard started a house-to-house search of the Mire today, and they keep finding new cases. Two of the other three rooms on this floor are starting to fill up. They’re calling it the blue pox, you know. The spots show up blue on all but the darkest skins.”

Briar saw Rosethorn’s fingers tighten on Henna’s shoulder, making the cloth dimple. “How many new cases?” she whispered. “How many dead?”

“Thirteen dead we know of,” was Henna’s soft reply. “Only sixty-five sick when I came in. I suspect more are hiding or telling themselves it’s just a rash, so there’s no way to judge how many are truly ill. I’m guessing from the counts I’ve seen that probably there are at least a hundred more cases today. If we’re lucky.”

Rosethorn chewed on her lower lip, thinking. “Where are they finding the sick?”

“North Mire,” replied Henna promptly. “From the buildings near the city wall.”

Rosethorn sighed. “Yanna willing, this is the worst of it.”

“If it doesn’t break out of the Mire, we’ll avoid a deal of heartache. The guards have orders to stop any Mire dwellers from entering the city.” Henna looked at Briar. “Now, my lad, get rid of that long face and dish up the broth for you two.” She pointed to a large, wax-sealed crock.

He did as he was told. Sipping his—no matter how hard he worked, he remembered to eat—he watched as Rosethorn drank her broth. When she finished, he followed her to her cot. “Thank the gods for Honored Moonstream,” Rosethorn commented softly as she slid under her blanket. “She’s no coin-pincher, unlike the people who run this place. With Henna in here we’ll get the supplies we need from Winding Circle.”

What we needed most was help, Briar thought, watching as Rosethorn went right to sleep. And we got it.

He went to bed. Lying down was one thing, he found; sleeping was something else. Had he given Flick willowbark tea that morning? In the last three days Rosethorn had taught him a slavish love for willowbark. It was the only thing that lowered the fever, which fretted her more than the spots and the sores that developed when the spots cracked open. The tea also soothed her other worry, that Flick was drying out, though Rosethorn used a different word: dehydration.

Perhaps he should check the slate at the foot of Flick’s cot. He would have marked it if he’d given his friend willowbark tea that morning.

Henna sat on Orji’s cot, holding the sick man’s wrists. Running from her fingers was a tracery of silver—magic. Briar closed his eyes for a moment, then looked again. The tracery was clearer, threading from dedicate to man like rootlets. Fascinated, Briar walked over to watch.

The magic streamed along Orji’s arms and into his body, as if Henna ran it through his veins. For a long, long moment Henna’s power bathed Orji from top to toe. At last it retreated, trickling out of his body the way it had come in. Once Henna got her magic back, she released the dozing man and folded her hands in her lap, head bowed.

Briar was about to creep away when she spoke. “You are supposed to be sleeping.” Her voice had the trained quiet of someone who spends her time with the sick: Briar heard clearly, but neither Orji nor Flick in the next bed stirred.

“I couldn’t. What magic was that, what you did?”

Henna swiveled to look up at him. “You know I was doing magic?”

“It’s a thing I picked up from Tris,” he replied. Not long after Sandry had spun their magics together, Niko had written a spell on Tris’s spectacles, helping her to see magic as he did. The skill then spread to Daja, Sandry, and Briar through their bond with Tris, just as Tris learned a little of their magics. “I see power when it’s moving or working,” Briar explained to Henna, “but I don’t know what it’s doing.”

Henna moved over to Flick’s cot, sat, and took Flick’s hands. The street girl stirred, opening heavy-lidded eyes. “I just want to see how you are,” Henna reassured her.

Flick glanced up at Briar, who nodded. “I’m fine,” she whispered, licking dry lips.

Briar fetched a cup of water and held Flick up so she could drink. When she turned her face away, he lowered her to the pillow again. As Flick’s eyes closed, Henna closed her own.

“It’s a thing healers learn to do,” she murmured. Around her hands sprouted a web of light-strands that sank into Flick’s dark-spotted arms and raced through her body. “Before we start work, we must first know what is wrong. It may be that the treatment we put to a fever will hurt the patient’s diseased kidneys, or the foxglove we give to strengthen a heartbeat may cause a weakened heart to fail.”

“Then you can see what the blue pox is,” Briar said eagerly.

Henna shook her head. “If it were a disease I had fought before, perhaps I could sense it, but only then. This isn’t even related to the diseases I know. But I can see the flow of her blood, the strength of her heart and kidneys and bowels. I can feel her muscles, brain, and bones. I can see weak blood, if she has it, or fluid in the lungs. Bad eating habits, certainly.” Henna wrinkled her nose. “And worms, and flukes.”